The Democracy of US 101 Through Ventura
You're rolling northwest on US Highway 101, one of the great Pacific Coast corridors, and right here through Ventura you're traveling a route that's been carrying dreamers and drifters toward California's promise since the 1920s. This stretch of 101 was once called El Camino Real, the Royal Road, following those Spanish mission bells all the way up the coast. But it was the automobile age that really made it sing.
Back in the thirties and forties, before the freeway conversions, this was Main Street Ventura, what they called the Thompson Boulevard routing. You'd slow down through town, past the Mission San Buenaventura, past motor courts with names like the Palms and the Capri, their office signs glowing with that California streamline moderne style. The Pierpont Inn up the coast has been welcoming motorists since 1910, back when this was still a dusty wagon road.
Ventura was a strategic stop on the coastal run between LA and Santa Barbara. The old Anacapa Auto Court, the Bell Street Motor Lodge, places where you could pull your Packard or your Hudson right up to your cabin door. There were produce stands selling Ventura County oranges and lemons, diners serving abalone steaks when they were still plentiful.
The town fought hard in the sixties when Caltrans wanted to widen 101 into a full freeway through downtown. Unlike so many California communities that got bulldozed and bypassed, Ventura managed to keep some of its street-level personality, even as the highway became this elevated expressway you're on now.
Here's the thing about 101 through here: it represented the democratic promise of the California road. Route 66 got all the glory ending in Santa Monica, but 101 was always the working highway, the agricultural corridor, the route for people actually living and working up and down this coast. Fruit pickers, fishermen, oil workers, not just tourists.
The old roadbed is still there, mostly. Thompson Boulevard parallels you just to the east. Some of that vintage road culture survives: classic diners, old storefronts. As you push north toward Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, keep your eyes open for those ghost signs and survivor motels, the ones that remember when this highway was the main street of coastal California.
| 01 | You're rolling northwest on US Highway 101, one of the great Pacific Coast corridors, and right here through Ventura you're traveling a route that's been carrying dreamers and drifters toward California's promise since the 1920s. This stretch of 101 was once called El Camino Real, the Royal Road, following those Spanish mission bells all the way up the coast. But it was the automobile age that really made it sing. Back in the thirties and forties, before the freeway conversions, this was Main Street Ventura, what they called the Thompson Boulevard routing. You'd slow down through town, past the Mission San Buenaventura, past motor courts with names like the Palms and the Capri, their office signs glowing with that California streamline moderne style. The Pierpont Inn up the coast has been welcoming motorists since 1910, back when this was still a dusty wagon road. | 0:57 | |
| 02 | Ventura was a strategic stop on the coastal run between LA and Santa Barbara. The old Anacapa Auto Court, the Bell Street Motor Lodge, places where you could pull your Packard or your Hudson right up to your cabin door. There were produce stands selling Ventura County oranges and lemons, diners serving abalone steaks when they were still plentiful. The town fought hard in the sixties when Caltrans wanted to widen 101 into a full freeway through downtown. Unlike so many California communities that got bulldozed and bypassed, Ventura managed to keep some of its street-level personality, even as the highway became this elevated expressway you're on now. | 0:40 | |
| 03 | Here's the thing about 101 through here: it represented the democratic promise of the California road. Route 66 got all the glory ending in Santa Monica, but 101 was always the working highway, the agricultural corridor, the route for people actually living and working up and down this coast. Fruit pickers, fishermen, oil workers, not just tourists. The old roadbed is still there, mostly. Thompson Boulevard parallels you just to the east. Some of that vintage road culture survives: classic diners, old storefronts. As you push north toward Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, keep your eyes open for those ghost signs and survivor motels, the ones that remember when this highway was the main street of coastal California. | 0:46 |